A/HRC/8/4 page 4 Introduction 1. Since taking up his duties in August 2003, the Special Rapporteur has addressed one or more main topics in each annual report. This report, the fifth by the current Special Rapporteur and the fourteenth since the mandate was established in 1994, looks at the issue of due process in situations of de jure or de facto states of emergency, and also at the complex issue of access to justice. 2. In analysing the issue of access, the Special Rapporteur considers his own reports and country visits and the material produced by other special procedures. It takes as a reference the International Bill of Human Rights and the precedents set by supervisory bodies, in particular the Human Rights Committee. He also takes account of the texts and precedents established by regional bodies; the Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers and the Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors; and other specific standards set in regional systems. 3. Given the United Nations word-count requirements, many examples and numerous legal references could not be included. Only the footnotes, grouped together in annex I, are retained. I. ACTIVITIES IN 2007 A. International meetings 4. From 11 to 20 June 2007, in Geneva, the Special Rapporteur took part in the fourteenth annual meeting of the special procedures of the Human Rights Council and the fifth session of the Council, where he presented his annual report, a report on exchanges with Governments concerning specific complaints, a report on his mission to the Maldives and a preliminary note on his mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In October he attended the sixty-second session of the General Assembly in New York, where he presented his report (A/62/207). 5. On 28 and 29 June 2007, the Special Rapporteur attended a meeting of the Supreme Courts of Justice of the Andean region organized by the Supreme Court of Ecuador, the body whose establishment and appointment he had pressed for in 2005 in the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS), after the Ecuadorian Supreme Court judges had been dismissed in breach of the Constitution, triggering a serious institutional crisis. 6. From 16 to 27 October he attended a training course in Washington D.C., on inter-American and universal systems for human rights protection, organized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Washington College of Law. 7. In November the Special Rapporteur spoke at the third meeting of the Ibero-American Legal Assistance Network, in Punta del Este, Uruguay, giving a presentation on his mandate and on international cooperation in the field of justice. 8. In December he chaired the expert seminar referred to in section B below.